Page 4 of The Book of Lost Stories
‘Neither. I’ve had … another project,’ I said, suddenly feeling strangely nervous about revealing what I’d been up to. None the less, I fetched the printout of my novel and handed it to him.
‘I’ll show you the journal tomorrow but in case you can’t sleep tonight, here’s a bit of bedtime reading.’
‘If that’s your thesis, you’ve gone over the top a bit, haven’t you?’ he commented, then opened the cover and looked at the title page before looking questioningly up at me. ‘Lord Rayven’s Revengeby Cleo Finch?’
‘It isn’t my thesis, it’s a novel,’ I confessed. ‘After reading the journal, the characters just sort of started talking in my head and the book really wrote itself. It was the weirdest feeling.’
‘This wholeeveningis getting weirder and weirder,’ Tris said. ‘I’m having this hallucination where I think my best friend just told me she’d written a novel in less than a month and now everything around me has started undulating, so I think I’d better take myself off to bed.’
But when he did, he had my novel tucked under one arm in case, as I’d suggested, he couldn’t sleep and needed a bit of bedtime reading.
Lord Rayven’s Revenge
CLEO FINCH
Based on a true story
1
Means of Escape
1808
The existence of the ill-used and sorely troubled Lady Malvina first impinged on Alys Weston’s consciousness in a nightmare, which she later ascribed to the roast duck she had eaten at dinner (sent over by the squire), and the sip of Papa’s port she took to fortify herself for the ascent to her chilly bedchamber.
However it was, she woke very early next morning with the whole plot of a gloriously Gothic romance in her mind. Springing out of bed, she lit a stump of candle, wrapped herself in an old shawl and, tossing her long plait of dark chestnut hair over her shoulder, proceeded to get her ideas down on paper before the prosaic light of day could dispel any of the thrillingly dark miasma filling her imagination.
Her captors travelled night and day with scarcely a pause, save for such meagre sustenance as they carried in their packs, through countryside that grew ever more craggy and mountainous.
The few sullen, sheepskin-clad peasants they met spoke in the language her mother had used to her in childhood, and Malvina came to realize that she was within the borders of Galbodia, beyond all reach of friends, family … or her beloved Alfonz.
The tall, raven-haired and sinister villain of the piece came to life on the page, rapidly followed by Malvina’s angelically fair betrothed, Alfonz. Then she added a ghostly, monkish figure, the plot and characters unfolding before her hurrying pen as she sat, frozen and exalted, before the little campaign desk that her papa had carried with him throughout his soldiering days. (It had fared rather better than he had, being battered but at least still all in one piece, which was more than one could say about Major Harrison Weston.)
The candle had guttered and died, and the sun long since weakly dragged its sorry self into the leaden sky over the Yorkshire moors, before she was disturbed. Miss Laetitia Grimshaw, once Alys’s governess, but now occupying a nebulous position somewhere between under-housekeeper and companion, popped her head around the door, looking quite distracted, and with her muslin cap over one ear.
‘Alys? Are you ill?’ she called softly, then, on catching sight of her seated before the desk, came right into the room.
‘Ill? No, of course I am not ill!’ Alys said, blinking away Malvina and her perilous situation … andespeciallythe image of her tall, dark, harsh-featured and fascinatingly villainous abductor, Raymundo Ravegnac. ‘Why should you think so? I amneverill.’
‘Well, you did not let the hens out, and it is not like you to be late for breakfast, my dear.’
‘Perhaps not, but I had the most brilliant idea for a novel in the night, Letty, and thought I had better get the bones of it down before I forgot it. Then it was so engrossing that I had no notion of the time passing.’
‘It was remiss of me not to notice your absence sooner, only the washerwoman is here and I was much engaged in sorting and counting linen.’
Laetitia’s general air of damp dishevelment and coarse cotton apron finally registered. Alys said remorsefully, ‘I had quite forgotten that Mrs Clarke was coming today to see to the laundry. Let us hope my blue cambric does not run out any more, for it is getting to be sadly grey. And youdidremind her to take care with the sheets we have not yet turned?’
‘Oh, yes, although she is so vigorous at pounding them that she gets quite carried away. I had best get back to her. Shall I leave you to compose the rest of your little story, or will you come down now?’
‘This is not just a story, Letty, but is to be an entire Gothic romance along the lines of Mrs Radcliffe’s wonderful tales, which I am sure we must both know by heart. I will read the outline of it to you later, but for now I suppose I had better hasten to get ready.’
Letty looked relieved. ‘That would indeed be best, for although Saul has seen to the hens, I am afraid the major is having one of hisbetterdays.’
Their eyes met in mutual comprehension and Alys exclaimed, ‘Oh, no!’
Letty nodded, a strand of mouse-brown hair, sadly out of curl from the steam, escaping from under her cap. ‘Yes, the news the squire brought to your papa yesterday, of the terrible tragedy at Priory Chase, has so enlivened him—’
‘Enragedhim,’ amended Alys.
